


the labyrinth

by bellafarallones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Human/Monster Romance, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Romance Ensues, Trans Duck Newton, agent stern has a kidnapping kink, duck and stern get trapped in there with them, indrid and barclay are the only non-monsters in the monster labyrinth, vaguely a labyrinth like from greek mythology au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26674387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: Ranger Duck Newton and Special Agent Joseph Stern stood together in the shadow of the labyrinth. “Well, I’m glad this isn’t our problem anymore,” said Stern sourly. Due to administrative reorganization, the Labyrinth of Monsters had recently been transferred from the purview of the FBI (Fantasy Bureau of Investigation) to the forestry service.“Well, it’s your problem right now,” Duck pointed out.
Relationships: Barclay & Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone), Barclay/Agent Stern (The Adventure Zone), Indrid Cold/Duck Newton
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	the labyrinth

Ranger Duck Newton and Special Agent Joseph Stern stood together in the shadow of the labyrinth. “Well, I’m glad this isn’t  _ our  _ problem anymore,” said Stern sourly. Due to administrative reorganization, the Labyrinth of Monsters had recently been transferred from the purview of the FBI (Fantasy Bureau of Investigation) to the forestry service. 

“Well, it’s your problem right now,” Duck pointed out. 

The FBI had not kept good records for the past five hundred years, and as a result, nobody really knew what kinds of monsters might be inside the labyrinth. The forest service had sent in a historian, but she’d come out screaming that she’d been attacked by a giant ape and a bird-monster with glowing red eyes. 

If she had, she’d escaped without so much as a scratch. But the forest service had decided to send in someone who was more used to dealing with threats. 

Thus Newton and Stern. Duck unclipped a key ring from his belt. One key was much larger than the rest, almost comically so, and this was the key he raised to the lock in the iron door. Stern clutched his flashlight. The labyrinth had been built into a huge cave, giving its walls a stone roof.

The door swung open. Stern followed Duck inside, and slammed the door with all his might. For a moment everything was silent. Then there was a low rumbling. Stern swung his flashlight beam up to the ceiling. “Do you think that crack was always there?”

“Run!” Duck sprinted into the darkness, away from the  _ crunch _ of falling rock. 

Time sped up and stood still all at once. Duck could feel a stitch like lightning in his stomach, and hear Stern’s wheezing breaths behind him, which was a relief, and it took a few seconds to realize that the sounds of the collapse had stopped. 

Duck slowed to a jog, and then stopped, waited for Stern to catch up. Stern, when he made it, was bent double, and pulled an inhaler out of his pocket to puff on. “Is this a good time to mention that this is my first week working for the FBI and that’s why they sent me on this stupid mission?”

Duck shook his head and said nothing.

Stern shone his flashlight down the way they’d come, illuminating a solid wall of rock. “...Someone’s gonna come get us, right?”

“Yeah. It might take a couple days, but our bosses know where we are.” For the first time, Duck took a good look around. There was bioluminescent fungi on the walls, glowing soft blue-green, and dark red stains on the brick. The walls stretched up into darkness. “And we may as well do our jobs while we’re here.”

“Um. Did you hear that?” said Stern nervously. 

Duck listened. He heard a voice, audible only in the silence of the earth. What it said was “ _ not yet _ .”

“Yes, but it’s definitely nothing. The wind.”

“We’re in a cave. There can’t be any wind.”

They stood still for a moment, listening to condensation drip down the walls and their own breathing. Then Duck gestured forward, and they turned the corner.

Well, this wasn’t an ape-man or a bird-monster. The creature in front of them looked like a bear, with a long snout and sharp claws, but not sleek like the bears Duck had seen before. Something like bloody vomit was dried and matted all down its front, and its eyes were watery, dripping black ooze. 

Stern pulled out his gun, and got a shot off when the creature swiped at him. Duck didn’t even have time to draw Beacon, stumbling backwards into a set of talons that wrapped around his upper arms and dragged him half-sideways up and off the ground, up above the walls of the labyrinth. 

The creature that grabbed him had wings so black he couldn’t make them out even as he heard them beat above him. The monster’s body contorted, bending double to stare into Duck’s face with inscrutable red eyes. “Please don’t stab me,” it said sheepishly. And for a beast with claws, its voice was smooth.

Stern did not see Duck get picked up behind him, though he heard his yell. What Stern saw was an ape-man with gleaming auburn fur appearing between him and the monster, as suddenly as if he’d been dropped out of the air, and punching the bear-thing square in the face. 

While the beast reeled, the ape grabbed Stern by the arm and tugged him further down the corridor. After they turned a corner he wrapped his hand around the gun that still hung limp in Stern’s hand, and crushed it easily between his claw-tipped fingers. 

“Ah,” said Stern. The display of raw strength sent a shiver down his spine. He looked behind him for Duck and saw only empty corridor.

“Come on,” said the ape-man, in half a growl. 

Stern dropped the crushed husk of a gun and followed.

Duck found himself set down quite gently in a part of the labyrinth that was much more homey, for lack of a better word, than what he’d seen before. The walls were clean, there was a stone-lined fire pit, and there was a small pool of water populated by a few eyeless fish.

The fire cast enough light for Duck to see his rescuer. Broad wings and a barrel chest, a head with red saucers for eyes but no other features discernable beneath the fuzz, certainly no nose or mouth, beyond the antennae on his head.

“Hello, Duck Newton,” the mothman said. “My name is Indrid.”

“Stern,” said Duck.

“He will be here shortly.”

Sure enough, in a moment Duck heard footsteps, and then another monster emerged out of the darkness, a seven-foot ape. And behind him, Stern.

“Excellent,” said Indrid. “Now we’re all here. My name is Indrid, and this is Barclay.”

“I’m Ranger Duck Newton, and this is FBI Special Agent Joseph Stern. We came to investigate the labyrinth, and the entrance caved in behind us, so it seems like we’re going to be here a while until our respective bosses get us out.” 

“We were told that the labyrinth was full of monsters,” said Stern.

“By and large that is true,” said Indrid.

“There’s monsters,” said Barclay. “There’s monsters, and then there’s us.”

“We have been alone in here for… oh, a few centuries now? So excuse us if our social skills are a little rusty.”

Barclay snorted. “Indrid, your social skills were  _ always  _ rusty.”

A winged beast and an ape-man. “Are you the ones who attacked the historian?” said Duck.

“Yes,” said Barclay. “In retrospect, not a great plan.”

“It could have worked!” said Indrid. “There were futures where it worked!”

“You say that every time, but somehow never when it’s  _ my  _ plan!”

Indrid’s head swiveled to look at Duck. “Please get us out,” he said.

“At the moment nobody’s getting out,” said Duck. “But as soon as the rockslide is cleared, I see no reason you’d have to stay here.” He was using the customer service voice he used when he was convincing someone to store their food properly against bears, but so far Indrid and Barclay seemed more reasonable than the average camper.

“So what  _ was _ your plan?” said Stern. “In attacking the historian.”

“We didn’t  _ attack  _ her,” said Indrid. “We were trying to get her jewelry off her - which, in retrospect, sounds almost worse - so we could enchant them and disguise ourselves.”

“Yes,” said Barclay. “The magic items that allowed us to appear human were taken from us when we were locked in here, and we don’t have anything else to enchant.” Barclay’s face was human enough that he could smile, and the good-naturedness of his expression put Duck at ease. “We don’t always look like this. In human form Indrid is shorter than me! Anyway, neither of you are vegetarians, are you?”

“No? Why?”

“We won’t get out of here for another forty-eight hours,” said Indrid dryly. “And Barclay is excited to show off his cooking.”

“I think you’ll be impressed by what I’ve come up with, given my limited resources.”

Duck looked to Indrid. “Can you confirm?”

“My, ah, taste in food is… esoteric? I have heard good reviews of Barclay’s cooking from others, however, and I foresee you’ll like what he comes up with.” 

“You all have been in here at least five hundred years, right?” said Stern sharply.

Barclay’s face fell. “What year is it?”

“Yes,” said Indrid. 

“How have you not starved? How have all the monsters in here not starved?”

Indrid and Barclay looked nervously at each other. Indrid reached up to his neck and withdrew a pendant that had previously been hidden beneath his feathers: a sliver of orange crystal, hanging on a thin silver chain. “Technically we don’t need to eat. We are fueled by magic, as are the monsters around us.”

“Is that why you were imprisoned? For being monsters?”

Barclay took a step towards Stern. “Do we seem like monsters to you? If this is how monstrous we are after five hundred years in darkness, fighting tooth and claw for our lives every other day,  _ imagine _ what we were before.”

“Barclay,” said Indrid, without moving.

Barclay looked back at Indrid. “Come help me look for ingredients,” he said, and then stalked out of the circle of firelight. Indrid nodded to Duck and Stern, and followed him.

“Wow,” said Duck. “Real fucking polite of you, Agent.”

Stern sat down on the ground and rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “The moth one said forty-eight hours. How can he possibly know that?”

“I don’t know, but there’s nothing to be gained by being rude.”

A quarter of a mile away, down winding hallways, Barclay bent down to peel a bioluminescent mushroom off the stone wall. “You wanted us to get stuck with them.”

“Yes.”

“Would they not have believed we were worth saving if we’d been standing by the entrance and stopped the cave-in?”

Indrid said nothing. There was some winged insect buzzing around, invisible in the darkness but tinny in the enclosed space.

“No. If it had been that, you would have told me. Indrid, we agreed you’d tell me what you saw so we could make decisions together!”

“I know. And I’m sorry. Comfort yourself with the thought that you are so close to being rid of me, Barclay. It’s… it was a moment of weakness.” Indrid turned around, as though the humans might have appeared behind him, as if he wouldn’t know if they were. “I saw a particularly appealing future.”

“Is it at least good for both of us?”

“Yes.”

“Then I trust you.”

Indrid crushed the fly between his fingers as it buzzed past him.

“Thanks.”

For dinner Barclay roasted a flank of monster meat on a spit over the open fire, and served it with bluish fungus and a bitter sauce that even Stern didn’t ask about the origin of. Somehow it was delicious.

\--

Night and day meant little in the cave, but by the clock on Stern’s phone it was almost midnight, and so the fire was out and everyone had laid down to sleep. Barclay was snoring loudly, and Stern was curled up small, using his suit jacket as a blanket.

Duck envied him that jacket. His ranger uniform wasn’t very warm against the cold stone with the fire out. Indrid, barely silhouetted against the blue glow of the fungus on the wall, was wrapped in his own wings, so still it was impossible to tell if he was asleep or not until one wing lifted, revealing his glowing red eyes. “Hello, Duck Newton.”

“Hello.” Duck sat up. His limbs were stiff, his tailbone twinged. “Must be weird, having people here.”

“Yes.” Indrid blinked slowly, catlike, and though his face was impossible to read Duck thought he was relaxed. “Will you tell me what the world is like? Your world?”

“My job is to take care of trees, so I don’t imagine that’s changed much.”

“You’re a little far from the forest.”

“Yes. I think we’re just in charge of the labyrinth now because the FBI - that’s where Stern works - didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”

“I thought that everyone had forgotten about us.”

“Almost. Uh. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but -”

“- you’re curious why we’re in here? Yes. Well. Barclay’s past is his own business, but I was a seer. I told… inconvenient futures.”

“You can see the future?”

“In fragments. In forty-two hours the rubble will be blown away so you and Agent Stern can escape.”

“That’s good to know. And, uh, you and Barclay are coming out with us, if I have anything to say about it.” In the distance a monster screamed, muted through layers of wall, and Duck shivered. 

“You will be warmer if you move closer to me,” Indrid said softly. “There were futures where you complained about it.”

“I don’t want to make it weird,” said Duck, already moving closer. He knew that whatever he asked for, there were futures where he asked for more, and that Indrid could see them. 

“You won’t.”

Duck moved close enough to press a hand to Indrid’s chest, solid beneath the fuzz, and then laid down next to him. Indrid waited a moment and then lowered his wing back over the both of them like a blanket.

The skin on the underside of Indrid’s wing, where the feathers were sparse, was hot, and Duck shuddered with the pleasure of it.

\--

Agent Stern woke up the next morning to a stiff neck and the acrid smell of something burning. He jolted upright, panicked, remembered where he was, and panicked some more.

He was in the labyrinth. Trapped in the labyrinth. With all the monsters. And Duck, who he couldn’t see. He looked frantically around - there was the ape-man, squatting next to the fire drinking a mug of something, and the winged one, still asleep.

Duck’s feet and one arm were sticking out from underneath a black-feathered wing. 

Barclay met Stern’s gaze and rolled his eyes. Stern smiled despite himself.

“Do people still drink coffee?” whispered Barclay, not all that quietly. “Last I remember it had just been invented.”

“Is that coffee?” Stern crawled on his hands and knees over to the fire.

“No. But it is a black, bitter liquid that really wakes you up. Want some?” Barclay held out his mug. “I’ve only got the one cup.”

Stern took a sip and then shoved the mug back into Barclay’s hands. “Blech. Man, you are gonna  _ love  _ what we’ve done with coffee in the past five hundred years.”

Indrid stirred, wings shifting, and Barclay gestured with the mug down the dark hallway. “Let’s walk and talk. He’s grumpy if you wake him up before he’s good and ready.”

Stern picked up his flashlight and followed. “I know people like that.”

“So.” Barclay’s voice was a pleasant baritone. “Tell me what I can expect from modern coffee.”

“Milk. Sugar. Caramel. There’s this thing where you whip the milk until it makes a froth on top and you can make shapes out of the froth?”

“Oh, god, it’s been so long since I’ve had milk and sugar.”

Stern strained to think back to world history class in high school, what would have changed in five hundred years. “Spices are a lot more available now? There’s this coffee drink called a pumpkin spice latte that tastes like pumpkin and has cinnamon and nutmeg in it.”

“I can’t wait.”

“You can only get a pumpkin spice latte in the fall, though, so you’re gonna have to wait a few months for that one.”

Barclay turned to him, genuinely beaming. Stern didn’t understand how a man could get so excited about coffee. “I have all the time in the world,” said Barclay. 

Stern didn’t know what to say to that. But he was saved the trouble of responding when a bestial roar, far too near for comfort, broke the silence. Barclay pushed his mug into Stern’s hands. “Shit. I normally go out with Indrid along to warn me about stuff.”

“What?”

Barclay grinned, a different smile than earlier, full of sharp teeth. “A monster.”

The beast came around the corner in a rush of water. Stern squawked and started running, clinging to the mug, but Barclay stood his ground, reached into the wave as it passed his legs and plucked out a glowing orb. The water followed it up into his hand and formed a humanoid body, which Barclay slammed against the wall. Then he tore his claws through its chest.

Stern turned around in time to see the orb of light disappear in a puff of smoke in Barclay’s fist. Barclay strolled down the hallway towards him, and plucked the cup out of his hand. “Thanks for keeping this safe for me.”

Barclay’s casualness, as well as the ease with which he’d dispatched the monster, had Stern flustered. He decided that if he was going to be red in the face, it may as well be in anger. “Why did you crush my gun!?” he said. “Now I’m defenseless!”

“Pardon me for not wanting to get shot.”

“Do you want me to get killed? How do I know you and mothman aren’t in line with the other abominations and you’re just playing with your food before you eat it?”

_ Thump.  _ Stern’s feet dangled uselessly off the ground. Barclay’s fist was twisted in his shirt-collar, holding him up easily against the wall. “You want me to be a monster?” Barclay growled. “Is that what you want?”

Stern whimpered. Barclay’s eyes widened in surprise, and he cast his gaze downward and then let out a short laugh. He let go of Stern and took a step back, allowing him to crumple against the wall. 

“You’re getting off on this. You like thinking I’m a monster.”

Stern straightened his shirt. “I -ugh! Fine!” Then he stomped off the way they’d come. 

Barclay watched him for a moment, and then called out. “If you’re trying to get back to camp, you’ll want to turn left there!” 

Stern’s voice came back still angry. “...thanks.” 

\--

Indrid and Barclay were gone, monster-hunting, and Stern and Duck sat together by the fire.

Stern cleared his throat, and Duck looked up. “Can I ask you for sex advice? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or get in trouble with fantasy HR, but you’re the only other, like,  _ person _ here.” 

Duck was jolted out of thinking of the way Indrid’s wings had felt around him. “Uh. Sure?” 

“Do you think they’re human enough to ethically have sex with?” 

“Yes,” said Duck, far too quickly, but Stern didn’t seem to notice. 

“Second, not unrelated question: do you think Barclay would hook up with me if I asked?” 

“You’ve done nothing but argue with the guy since we got here!” 

“I mean, I don't want to marry the guy. I just. Look. I know this is a weird coincidence, but being kidnapped is…” Stern lowered his voice “...my number one oddly specific sexual fantasy and -”

“Oh my God.”

“-which, yeah, I know it’s weird! And it’s so weird and specific that there’s not a lot of good porn out there, and, Duck, this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me!”

“He hasn’t reacted well in the past when you’ve suggested you see him as a threat.”

“Yeah, I have been kind of a dick to him. I, um. I apologized this afternoon. I told him he wasn’t scary and I was just… frustrated and feeling powerless because of the whole being trapped thing.”

“Communication is good.”

Stern laughed. “He made me tell him about all the different drinks on the Starbucks menu. I promised that when we got out of here I’d take him and buy him all the fancy coffee he wanted.”

“I think that this is a conversation you need to have with him.”

\--

“So let me get this straight.”

Stern squirmed under the intensity of Barclay’s gaze, but did not back down. It was the next morning, and once again he and Barclay had ventured out into the labyrinth while Duck and Indrid slept. 

“You want to have sex with me. Because I kidnapped you.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“I dispute the premise that I did, in fact, kidnap you. I dragged you away from a monster that was attacking you.”

“Well, yes. I’m not alleging any misconduct on your part. I just… have a thing for getting kidnapped, and you’re the person I’ve come closest to getting kidnapped by.”

“How much does this have to do with me being a monster?”

“You’re not a monster. It does have a little bit to do with the fact that you’re bigger and stronger than me, but you’re not a monster.”

Barclay nodded, and said nothing.

Stern was very conscious that Barclay had not said one way or the other whether he was interested in hooking up or not. “So. Uh. What do you think you’re gonna do when we get out of here?”

“I was a chef before, and I’ll probably go back to that. I’m not like, y’know, Indrid.”

“What do you mean, like Indrid?”

Barclay looked confused for a moment, and then embarrassed. “Oh, I thought Duck must have told you.”

Stern scowled. “Duck and I literally met for the first time the day before yesterday when we were put together on this assignment. We’re not  _ friends,  _ or anything.”

“Well, Indrid can see the future.”

So that’s how he was so confident about how many hours remained until they were rescued. 

When Stern didn’t say anything, Barclay continued. “And do magic. So he doesn’t have to… get a real job, if he doesn’t feel like it. I’m just a dude.”

“Hardly.” Even if he couldn’t see the future, Barclay was still a centuries-old, absolutely  _ jacked  _ magical being.

They walked in silence for a few moments. For Stern the hallways blurred together, but Barclay moved confidently. Presumably after so many years the labyrinth was no longer a maze. “I think you and Duck are friends,” said Barclay. “I think if you get stuck somewhere with someone and forced to work together, there’s nothing else you can be. I mean, I’d know.”

“Does that mean you and I are friends? We’re also stuck here.”

“Don’t tell me we’re not, I was almost finished making us matching friendship bracelets!” Barclay teased. 

“Thank you,” said Stern. “Really.”

\--

Duck felt feathers between his fingers and pressure between his thighs and Indrid’s smooth voice in his ear.  _ Duck. Duck.  _

“Duck.” Indrid was shaking his shoulder. 

“Ah!” Duck shoved himself away from Indrid. Cold stone against his back woke him up fast, but he shifted his thighs and felt himself dripping. He couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming about besides just  _ Indrid,  _ but whatever it had been, he’d found it terribly arousing. 

Barclay and Stern were nowhere to be seen, but Indrid was half-sitting up, his antennae twitching. “Nice dreams?” Indrid said.

“I wish I could read you,” said Duck. “Facial expressions are more convenient than I’d realized.”

“If I was in human form I would be blushing,” said Indrid mildly. “I’m also seeing… futures.”

“Yeah? Dirty ones?”

“I do not wish to make you uncomfortable, but Barclay and Agent Stern are not within earshot, and likely won’t be for another hour. And I am… amenable.”

Duck launched himself at Indrid, ended up on top of him, pinning his hands to the stone. “You don’t have a mouth, do you?” said Duck, squinting at the area below Indrid’s eyes, where he could see only feathers.

“Not in the conventional sense, no.”

“Shame.”

Indrid thrust his knee up between Duck’s thighs and Duck gasped, grinding on it. “You’re very cute when you’re this desperate. Needy enough to take your pleasure rutting on me?”

“Yes.” Duck fisted his hands in the soft feathers on Indrid’s chest and rocked his hips. Yes, he was needy, a beast rutting on a beast, and he touched Indrid’s cheek, wanting him to feel good too. “Where can I touch you that it’ll feel good?”

“Antennae. Be gentle, though, oh-” Indrid’s voice dissolved into high-pitched whimpers as Duck’s thumb brushed against his antennae. “You’re so  _ good  _ for me,” said Indrid, soft and sweet and right in Duck’s ear.

“Keep talking, please, your  _ voice - _ ”

“If I had a tongue, Duck, it would be for your pleasure in whichever way you’d like. What would you like me to say?”

“Tell me how wrecked I am.”

“You were saying my name in your sleep; it woke me up. At first I thought you might be having a nightmare, might be afraid of me, but then I felt you grinding your hips on me - you want me so bad, Duck, it’s pathetic.” Indrid dug his claws into Duck’s hips, holding him close. “Lucky for you I want you just as much.”

The physical stimulation wasn’t as much as he was used to, but with Indrid’s hands on him and Indrid’s voice and the half-darkness around them, it was enough. Duck’s orgasm, when it came, was a drawn-out and desperate thing. 

He went boneless on Indrid’s chest, which was quite solid beneath the down, but whether this was muscle or exoskeleton Duck couldn’t tell. “Why are you so hot?” he groaned.

Indrid’s hand stilled where it had been stroking Duck’s hair. “Um,” Indrid said, and his voice was small. “Is it because I’m strange? I really don’t understand why anyone would find me appealing.”

Duck pushed himself up a little to look into Indrid’s eyes, still full-moon round and unreadable. “Sorry, that was a rhetorical question. But I don’t see why I  _ wouldn’t _ find you appealing. You’re nice to touch, and your voice…”

“Oh.” Indrid’s voice was still small, but now there was a smile in it.

“Speaking of which. Where does your voice, like, come from? If you don’t have a mouth.”

“Magic? The last time I thought too much about it I got a headache and couldn’t speak for a few hours, but it’s the same voice I have when I appear human.”

“Ah.” Duck dragged his fingers through the long feathers on Indrid’s side, making sure they all lay straight, feeling Indrid shiver a little underneath him. “What can I do for you, big guy? I shouldn’t get to have all the fun.”

“Well. I. Firstly, it was my pleasure; you’re very - uh. Well. This body lacks the… neurophysiology? To experience sexual satisfaction in the same way you do. But in seven hours I will have a human form again, and if at that point you wish to have your way with me, I anticipate I will be enthusiastic.”

“I look forward to it.”

Indrid lifted Duck just enough for him to sit up, hunched over into himself with Duck in his lap.

“You good?” said Duck.

“I hate it here.” Indrid’s face was as unperturbed as always, but his voice was half-broken, as if he were close to tears. “I’m - I’m meant to be outside. Before, I could taste all the flowers and trees in the air, I could find my way anywhere, just from the sun on my antennae, but in here I’m  _ lost,  _ Duck.”

“I’ll get you out. I promise.”

“What if I’ve forgotten how to be in the sun? What if five hundred years in the dark was too much and I’m ruined?”

Duck put his arms around Indrid’s broad shoulders as best he could. “I mean, it might take a while to get used to being outside. But you’re not ruined. You’re never ruined.”

\--

A small crowd of local news reporters gathered to watch the rescue from the labyrinth: the controlled detonation, the cloud of smoke, and the yawning chasm. They rushed forward when they saw Duck and Stern emerging unharmed, but stopped when they saw the two beasts behind them. 

“Well, Duck,” drawled Ranger Juno Devine. 

“Long story,” said Duck. 

“Ranger Devine.” Indrid bowed to her, and Barclay shook her hand. 

Duck explained, leaving out quite a lot, but Juno knew him well enough to hold her follow-up questions for a later date. Now she just pulled the hempen bracelet off her wrist and handed it to Indrid. 

“Thank you,” he said, and looked at Barclay. “Same as before?”

Barclay rubbed the back of his neck. “...Can you make me a little taller?”

“Of course.” Indrid waved his hand over the bracelet. Nothing seemed to happen, but he passed it to Barclay, and when Barclay clipped it around his wrist, reality warped around him as he shrunk from a beast into a very tall man. He still had an auburn beard and long hair, and wore a red flannel and acid-wash jeans.

“Oh,” said Barclay, running his hands down his sleeves and over his cheeks. “It’s so good to be back.”

Indrid strode across the field to one of the reporters, who had a pair of sunglasses with round red lenses hanging from their shirt collar. “Hello,” he said pleasantly.

“Hello?” They shrunk back from him, but only a little. 

“Rock-paper-scissors you for your sunglasses?”

“Take them.” The reporter fumbled, not looking away from Indrid’s face as they untangled the sunglasses from their shirt and handed them over.

“Thank you.” Indrid turned the sunglasses over in his hands and then popped them onto his face.

His transformation was even more unsettling than Barclay’s. His wings  _ crunched  _ as they folded again and again, smaller and smaller and then into nothing. Feathers melted into nothing like burning paper. 

Duck had expected something tall and stately, not this five-eight slip of a man with silver hair and a face that could be thirty or fifty. But this was Indrid, and his smile was familiar, somehow, even though Duck had never seen it before.

“Handling the great outdoors alright?” said Duck.

“Yes, thank you.” With his eyes hidden, Indrid’s expression was only slightly more readable than it had been before, but he was smiling.

Agent Stern looked so much more rumpled in daylight, and there were dark circles under his eyes, but while Juno talked to the reporters he nudged Duck in the shoulder. “Barclay’s really excited for modern food, and I didn’t bring a car, so… my treat for the four of us if you drive us to the diner?”

\--

Several weeks had passed since the escape from the labyrinth. Agent Stern’s wrists were bound behind him, his feet tied to the legs of a kitchen chair, forcing his knees apart. 

Barclay, leaning against the counter with a mug of coffee in his hand, was so much more visually appealing than his surroundings that he looked almost jarringly out-of-place. Stern had never thought about his apartment’s decor until Barclay had started visiting. Now, though, he felt the urge to rip out the gray tile and paint over the scuffed cabinets. 

Barclay raised his eyebrows, a prompt, and Stern struggled to get the smile off his face. Finally he summoned anger and fear, imagining he was in another place. “Unhand me at once!”

Barclay burst out laughing.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. Your acting ability is just… really something else.”

“Like you could do any better.”

Barclay set the mug of coffee down and moved to stand over him. Stern’s breath caught in his chest as Barclay ran his hand through his hair, then gripped it tight and wrenched his head back over the back of the chair.

Barclay ran the tip of his thumb possessively over the line of Stern’s jaw. Out of bite-range. Smart. “I thought you’d know better than to be rude to me. I do have you at my mercy, after all.”

Stern shivered and strained forward, breathing in the smell of coffee and Old Spice. Yes, Barclay was the better actor by far.

There were aspects of this fantasy more intense than what Stern had told Barclay about: rope-burn on his wrists and ankles, tears soaking through a blindfold and being tossed like luggage into someone’s trunk. The suffocating dark. But with Barclay standing above him, Stern’s imagination provided the rest well enough. 

Barclay’s hand in his hair loosened, stroking his hair now rather than tugging at it. “What do you want?”

“Please let me suck you off.” 

“Yeah? You want me that bad?”

“Yes, please.”

“Good thing it was me who kidnapped you. Someone else might have had… bad intentions.” Barclay easily undid Stern’s tie and pulled so it slithered off his neck.

“I’m glad it was you.” He  _ was  _ glad that it had been Barclay, glad that it had been him in the labyrinth and him holding his hand and being excited about the last five hundred years of food science. But he couldn’t handle thinking about all that now. “Fuck my face, please.” 

Barclay held the tie for Stern to wrap his fingers around. “Drop this and I’ll ease off, okay?”

“Yes.” Stern nodded, ran his thumb over the cool silk, and made his jaw go slack. 

Barclay was as rough as Stern had hoped, pulling hard on his hair and fucking his throat raw. Of course it didn’t hurt that his dick was absolutely massive, and that he praised Stern for being able to take all of it, and said  _ you’re mine.  _

He moaned  _ Joseph, please  _ and finished in Stern’s mouth and down his chin. Stern swallowed and managed a blissed-out smile. 

“We should have established in this roleplay whether I, your kidnapper, know your name or not,” Barclay joked, and wiped pearly cum off Stern’s cheek, so gently Stern choked up. “Want me to untie you before I get you off, or after?” said Barclay in between licking his own cum off his fingers.

“After,” said Stern, voice rough.

Barclay kissed him on the forehead. “Anything for my favorite hostage.”

**Author's Note:**

> i joke with molly_hats all the time about how agent stern has a kidnapping kink based on how often he gets kidnapped/makes himself extremely vulnerable to kidnapping in fic. finally i made it happen. is this a valid headcanon? come tell me on tumblr @bellafarallones


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